Belle Wong: writer, reader, creativity junkie

Tag Archives: Joseph Finder

I’d kicked July off with a migraine (my first since I was 16!), followed by a two-week long tension headache. It’s kind of funny, but once I realized it was all due to tension, I relaxed, got a massage, and the whole thing went away.

There’s one thing that’s very difficult to do when you’re caught in the throes of a headache or a migraine – read! So when I started feeling better, it was like my mind was starved for books. Really really starved. In the last four weeks, it feels like all I’ve been doing is reading, and reading, and more reading. I was getting through books so fast, I didn’t have time to Pin them, or even add them to Goodreads.

So today I’m sitting here, trying to remember what-all I’ve read over the past four weeks. I’m probably missing some reads, but here’s the list so far:

I enjoyed this series, and I’m very glad that I came to it late, since I really really hate cliffhangers – but guess what? When you have all three books of the trilogy in your hot little hands, it’s like having one lovely, long absolutely thrilling book to read. You can say things like, cliffhangers? What cliffhangers?

I enjoyed The Gathering even more than the Darkest Powers trilogy. And I was more than a little bummed out because I got the ebook copy of The Calling, the second book in the series, from the library – and I accidentally deleted and returned it! So yes, I’m now back on hold for it. Sigh.

And from Daniel Suarez:

First, I decided to use up some of my Audible credits, and after browsing around, decided on Kill Decision. I enjoyed it, and remembered that some of the reviewers at Audible mentioned that Suarez’s Daemon/Freedom ™ books were even better, so I decided to give Daemon a try.

I LOVED Daemon! It was on-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting – I devoured it in a day. I’m now at the start of the sequel, Freedom ™.

Mind Game, by Christine Feehan

I also read one of the books from Christine Feehan’s GhostWalkers series, Mind Game. And this is what I discovered about myself (well, okay, I already knew this) – I’m not really cut out for the romantic thriller/paranormal types of reads. Reading Mind Game, I loved the story, I loved the characters, and all I really wanted to know was – what’s going to happen next?

The book would have been a page-turner for me, but all the love scenes got in the way. The first love scene was great, in that it was very credible. Actually all of the love scenes were very credible – they happen at reasonable times, and not in the middle of a suspenseful bit of plot.

I’ve always disliked books where the male and female protagonists are hiding out, people are hunting them, they are basically facing death around every corner – and they somehow find the time to have mind blowing sex in the middle of it all. I mean, really, if your options are A. have ground-shaking fireworks-driven sex or B. survive to see tomorrow, what would you choose?

And even if you did choose option A, seriously, would you really be able to keep your mind on the moment? Wouldn’t you have some pesky, worrisome thoughts lurking at the back of your mind, like Wait! What was that I just heard? My God, it sounds like footsteps coming our way. I’m really glad he’s enjoying this, but I wish he’d keep the moans down to an almost inaudible level. What if the killer hears us?

Anyway, Feehan wrote that first love scene very credibly, and that first scene was all quite enjoyable. But I ended up quickly flipping through all the remaining love scenes, because what I really wanted to know was, what’s going to happen?

I’m in the middle of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter right now, and it’s been quite an interesting read so far. I like the way Grahame-Smith weaves fictitious journal entries into the narrative. The whole thing reads rather like nonfiction – fun stuff!

Yes! I finally got around to picking up this series! I got the audiobook version of A Game of Thrones, and enjoyed it so much in audio, when I saw the boxed set containing Books 1-4 at Costco last week, I couldn’t resist. I’ll probably end up reading them all in print first, and then going back to the audio versions for a re-read – there are so many characters, I suspect I’ll find it a little less confusing if I tackle the series in print first.

I’ve had Power Play in my TBR stacks for a long time now. We don’t really have much space for my TBR piles in the condo, so I stash them all in my bedroom closet, along the narrow shelves that run along the top. We’ve also managed to squeeze our dressers into the closet, the surface of which provides additional TBR room. I happened to wander into the closet one day, thinking vaguely about changing out of my PJs, and saw Power Play on the top of the stack sitting on my dresser. I grabbed it, started reading, and didn’t stop until I was finished. Definitely a page-turner. It’s the sort of book that you finish and think to yourself, this would make a great movie.

This mystery from Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen has a nice touch of humour to lighten up what would otherwise be quite a grim plot. It was an interesting, quick read, and I’d like to read more in this series about detective Carl Mørck, not so much because Mørck is that absorbing a character, but because I want to find out more about his quirky assistant, Assad!

This is the first Maggie O’Dell book I’ve read, and I’ll definitely be reading more in the series. I would have preferred more of a blockbuster, justice for all kind of ending, but I guess when you’re talking about government and bureaucracy, it’s not really such a credible thing. Still, I found O’Dell interesting, and have put several more of the titles in the series on my TBR list.

The Vanessa Michael Monroe series, by Taylor Stevens

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Informationist, by Taylor Stevens. Munroe is a wonderfully strong protagonist, and Stevens delivers a thrilling, suspenseful read. As soon as I finished The Informationist, I grabbed a copy of The Innocent, the second book in the series. While The Innocent was a good read, it didn’t have quite the flare of The Informationist. But I’m definitely looking forward to the next book in the series!

And the coming attractions:

So all in all, it’s been quite a good four weeks for me, reading-wise! I suspect the rest of August will serve up more of the same, as I’ve got some great-sounding books on hold at the library, as well as some coming-soon attractions that I can hardly wait to get my hands on:

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I'm a writer, avid reader, artist-at-heart & book indexer. I blog about writing, books, art, creativity, spirituality, & the power of the imagination. Oh, and I like to write stuff about life in general, too!

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." - Stephen King

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The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something beautiful, though one might do those things anyway. Those things are beside the point. The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job.

“I didn’t write my books for posterity (not that posterity would have cared): I wrote them for myself. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t hunger for readers and fame. I never could have endured so much hard, solitary labor without the prospect of an audience. But this graveyard of dead books doesn’t unnerve me. It reminds me that I had a deeper motive, one that only the approach of old age and death has unlocked. I wrote to answer questions I had — the motive of all art, whatever its ostensible subject. There were things I urgently needed to know. ” James Atlas

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